Happy Birthday To Me

Since my post this morning, it turns out i did have a very interesting birthday.
All day I knew it was my birthday, and co-workers were wishing me a happy birthday but I was really tired from the show and had a lot of thing son my mind that it didn't feel like any special day that was different from any other day.
Throughout the day I kept getting tons of happy birthday wishes from all kinds of friends (new and old) on Facebook which started to give me that feeling that today could be different.

Things really picked up after work.

I got home as my parents left to go out for a friend's dinner. Eventually Aurit came over with a cake box (which I couldn't open yet), a card and a present.
She ended up buying me The Game of LIFE - Simpsons Edition! It's pretty damn cool. We played it right away and she totally kicked my ass (She made 1,154,000$ while I had a measly 852,000$. Then my parents and my brother Lorne came home (they picked up Lorne from a baseball game) and we had cake, which happened to be chocolate cake with chocolate sprinkles and icing and cookies and more chocolate!



Everyone was right, this day was special.

Can't wait until Saturday night!

Happy Birthday Day To Me

Twenty Six years ago at 6:45am on this day, I was born.
Today's date, also being the age I turned, makes this years birthday a "Champagne" or "Golden" birthday. I.e. It's supposed to be a special one.

So far so good.

All of last night was spent was spent with the police. No I wasn't in trouble for breaking the law, for I was with THE Police!

Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland.

I didn't write "saw The Police" because it was quite difficult to see them from where I was sitting since the ticket I was given by my brother as a favor for helping him with his house/birthday gift was for the seat that was PHYSICALLY the furthest distance from the stage possible. I was in the last row of the blue (highest) section, directly opposite the stage at the other end of the stadium.

No matter, I had binoculars. Too bad the show sucked....

NOT!

It was FREAKING AWESOME! I sat with my sister in law, who was closer to my age when the police were popular the first time around, so she weas so into it. She kept making me get up and dance. I've been listenign to the compelte box set (Message in a Box) all week, so I recognized all of their songs minus one or to.

They opened with Message in a Bottle, followed by Synchronicity pt. 2, and Walking on the Moon. What a great start to a great show. I think they ended with Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic, took a 5 minute break, came back and did Roxanne, So Lonely and Every Breath You Take. Then it was over....

Then they came back on AGAIN and finished it off with Next To You!

I woke up this morning EXHAUSTED but managed to sleep in an extra 20 minutes and somehow still ended up at work at the same time.

Then as I got to work, the elevator doors opened ontheir own before I could even push the button.

Hopefully the rest of my day will rock.

Pranked!

Totally out of th eblue some chick called me and said "Mr Budman? Is your refrigerator working?". To which I replied "No, it's off and I'm sitting naked in it." Lots of laughter ensued from what I'm guessing were 3 or 4, 12 year old girls. Then they hung up.

Nice going guys!

Movie rental from hell

So about 3 weeks ago I rented the movie Night Watch. It's the movie based on the book of the same title which I happened to have read recently. The movie was horrible but I had a 7 day rental on it so I didn't rush to return it.

A few days ago I remembered that I rented a movie and never returned it... I recalled that I last saw it on our stairs and then on top of some books. I ask my mom if she returned it and she couldn't remember. I ask my dad and he had no idea what i was talking about.

Since both my parents couldn't remember if they returned my movie or not, I went to the video store and they confirmed I still had not returned it. Well at least I knew that it wasn't at the video store! So where the heck was it?

Books... movie... books... library...! The books were books my brother borrowed from the library that my mom was returning for him. To the library, in St. Laurent! I called them and I was right, my mom returned a VIDEOTRON DVD RENTAL to a LIBRARY.

So it wa at the library! NO! Turns out they decided to return it themselves, and they did, to the "Videotron video store in St. Laurent", as the person on the phone told me. I looked on line and there were TWELVE Videotron stores not too far from the library. I called the nearest one and they told me they didn't have it.

I called the Dollard store and told them my story. They said I could just go and pay them 6.99$ as if I bought the movie used and forget about returning it. Otherwise, my late fee was already at 8.99$.

I was going to just do that, but a couple of hours later, the St. Laurent store called me back and said they found it! Today I picked it up and returned it to the DDO store. The guy was nice and after hearing my long and complicated story only charge me 5$ instead of the 9.25$ it had accumulated to.

The moral of the story? Don't rent crappy movies.

The Perils of Living in the Boonies

Last night I went to go see a kick ass show by an Australian band called The Cat Empire. I always have a hard time explaining what kind of music they are since they fuse all kinds of styles togther but I read in an article recently that they are jazz, funk, ska, latino if that makes any sense.

The show was at the metropolis and was 100% better than at the Bell Centre. I went with Dan whom I had met while looking for a job through JEM. He's a cool, very funny Jewish guy originally from Hudson. I guess you can say it was a man-date.
We were both pretty tired from the rest of the weekend so we both agreed on sitting on the second floor. We had a gret view of the stage and I got to rest my poor, weak, chicken legs.

The opener was a guy by the name of Jeremy Fisher. Although it was the first time I ever heard of him, I quite liked his music. He sounded like he could be Paul Simons and Bob Dylan's bastard child (and even looked a bit like Dylan). I think I'm goign to check out some of his music.

The Cat Empire came on shorlty after and kicked ASS! One thing they like to do it seems, is just go all out. You know how at shows, a band may go into crazy solos for their last song or in the encore? Well they did that at their 2nd song of the night! They repeated that formula throughotu their set.

Or th epart that I saw rather...

I completely didn't put together that Sunday night concert + work monday morning + living so far away= big trouble. Halfway through the show I started thinking and realized that I if I stayed until the end of the show (~11:00-11:30) Id get home by 12:45am! so I left at 13:30 and got home at 11:45pm and hoped into bed at 12:20am.

Surpisingly enough when I woke up this morning I wasn't too exhausted, just regular exhausted.

AUGH!

My current task at work is to spray paint some clear bottles to a shiney metallic blue.
The process involves:
1. spray painting the clear plastic wih a gray primer
2. Spray painting the primer with the metallic blue paint
3. Sparaying the paint with a shiny gloss

Simple enough, right?

Wrong.

The gray primer was super easy to apply. The blue paint was a bit more difficult (different brand we got) but still manageable, except that I screwed up a spot on one and had to rub apiece away and reprime it. The lastley, just adding the gloss. Howvere, nowhere does it say that the gloss EATS AWAY at the paint! At least, as far as I can tell, while the gloss is still wet, the paint easily comes off, because I accidently dropped on of the tubes and the paint completely smeared off. On top of that the last tube I did, as soon as I put it down, I accidently just nicked a tiny part with my finger.

The whole painting process takes 5 minutes but I have to give 2 hours to dry. Now I have to redo a couple of tubes and I still have at least 6 more to do. The worst thing of it all is that my "studio" is a huge carboard box that I placed in the hallway. I was told by my boss to go do it there, yet everyone else keeps telling me it smells too much ad that I better be careful or the president of the company (who is on vacation for a week, thank god) will kill me if he sees even a spec of paint on the carpet or wall. I'm too young and sexy to die.

AUGH!

Budman meets the White Stripes

Friday night I went with Ian to go see the White Stripes perform at The Bell Center. The performance itself was phenomenal. I had tickets for the floor which was a standing area. We managed to get all the way to the front, so I had a great view of both Jack and Meg white. Their aesthetics were truly mind blowing. I've heard that Jack White strictly makes them wear only red, white or black but this was ridiculous! There was a giant red back drop, all the speaker boxes and organs were red. Jack's guitars were red and white. They wore red shirts and pants. All the mic stands were either red with a microphone that had a white wire or vice versa. All the crew members wore black suits with black ties and bowler or pimp hats with red feathers in them. The strobe lights were even red! There was also a platform behind the band with 3 staircases that when Jack walked along, white smoke would rise behind his foot steps.

As for the music, it was kick ass. They opened the show with Blue Orchid and ended the show with Seven Nation Army. They played equally as many songs from Elephant as they did from their new album, Icky Thump. They even teased us a bit by playing riffs from some songs but never playing the actual song, instead leading into a different song altogether.

The only down fall of the show were a bunch of guys totally off their rocker on drugs. They were really pushing people, screaming in people's ears, forsing others to let them body surf (which is prohibited), and totally screaming absurd things (like "Meg White is the such a hot bitch!". I like their music, but Meg White is not really that good looking...). After all that, the security guards didn't do anything at all. All they did was stare at them and give them false warnings. I'm never going to watch a concert at teh Bell center on the floor again.

I left with a smile on myfae though because I bought a kick ass White Stripes shirt! It's a picture of a skeleton ribs and a heat (as if it were my own) completely made up of buttons.

More Drama

Wednesday I met up with Emilie. She is now in New York for the summer before she returns to Montreal for Law School at McGill in September. We spent the evening chatting over food and beers at Else's. First time I was there. It's a cool place I will admit. This was followed by a quick game of pool which I lost, this time legitimately (a.k.a by not scratching the 8 ball).

Emilie complained that I wasn't writing enough drama on my blog so here goes:
After pool, I left Emilie and headed to the metro. There I met 5 really hot chicks from Sweden looking for a nice tall jewish guy with curly hair and glasses who could be their tour guide for the night. Even though I'm dating someone and had to get up early for work, I couldn't say no to 5 hot Swedish chicks! So we hit up EVERY SINGLE bar on St. Laurent. by 2 am I was throwing up on EVERY SINGLE street corner on St. Laurent. On my way to the hot Swedish chicks' hotel, with 2 girls in each arm and one on my back, I bumped into Aurit on the street. She was not pleased and kicked me in the balls, right in front of the hot Swedish chicks. I wanted to apologize, but I was with 5 hot Swedish chicks! So I crawled my way to the hotel room where we had lots and lots of sex.

I hope that's enough (completely fabricated) drama for ya Emilie!

Have a good tiem in New York City!

So How Is Work Going?

Every one wants to know how things are going at my job. Short answer:
GREAT!

I really like it a lot. So far I keep getting to do different things. I started with just adding French text to already existing labels. Then I was asked to create a label using an existing design to accommodate a new fragrance. Recently I graduated to designing labels completely on my own. It's fun but also a challenge. Sometimes I get a reaction like "Wow that is great! I really love the design!" and at other times I get "Oh.... well, I hope you have other ideas". The main thing is not to get discouraged and especially not to take anything personally, because my personal tastes don't really count, it what the client wants that counts.

The coolest thing about my job is that sometime in the near future you'll be able to buy the actual products with the labels I've designed in stores such as Pharmaprix and Jean Coutu. Soon enough, my room will be filled with womens beauty products.

Canada Day in Montreal

While my weekend in Ottawa was spend mostly relaxing, my Canada day weekend was spent entirely being slave drived.

Saturday I was home helping my mom stain our backyard fence. We didn't get too far for my Aunt and Uncle arrived from Toronto to stay with us for the weekend. Saturday night I hit the Jazz fest with Aurit. We saw a couple of shows that were quite good. We then went to St. Sulpice to meat up with my buddies Mike and Zain, who was leaving the next day to move to Ottawa. The last five times I saw Zain, he was either moving away or back to Montreal (all within the last year or so). Make up your mind already! St. Sulpice was a lot of fun. We ended up being a nice sized group (~10 people) just chatting away. Aurit had a drinking contest with Mike and realy showed him up. She topped it off by finishing his beer before we left.

The most interesting part of the night had to be the metro ride home. I had parked my car at Namur and by Vendome Aurit was telling me how she really had to go to the washroom. We were on the second to last metro of the night and I had to think quickly. Earlier that week I met a friend at a bar, Finagens, located right across the street from Snowdon Metro, so I suggested we stop there for her quick rest stop.

We get to the bar and she runs to the bathroom. The bar is dead. The only ones there are the owner, someone chatting him up at the bar, and a table of about 5 drunken people. they see me standing all alone and ask me if I"m there for Karaoke. Next thing I know, they convince me to sing Macho Man by the Village People. So I did. Half way through, I look up and see Aurit pissing her pants laughing. The other patrons went wild! Most random karaoke ever!

Sunday, was spent helping my friends Maryam and Sean move into a new apartment. It took ALL freaking day, but the free pizza dinner made it all worth it. Aurit met me there and even helped clean up a bit before we headed to the Old Port for Canada Day festivities. Note: NEVER drive to the old port on Canada Day! It TRULY SUCKS! We finally found parking and went to the stage. We got there just in time to watch Jeff Marting, former lead man for the Tea Party, and his set was AWESOME! For one song, there was a crazy acrobatic doing tricks on a giant ring hanging from the ceiling of the stage. The fireworks that followed were tons of fun to watch and some were just gigantic, like the whole city was being swallowed up!

Monday was no day of rest either, I spent the day painting the fence again. Aurit came over and helped so that was fun. It started to rain though right before we finished so the back wall looks stained except for 2 small parts. The fence kind of looks like Alfred E Newman's smile.
After dinner, Aurit and I went to Lorne's house to watch a movie. We ended up watching the 1989 classic Say Anything starring John Cusack. I highly recommend it.

St. Jean Baptist Weekend in Ottawa

In typical Budman style, I spent St. Jean Baptist weekend in Ottawa and was in Montreal for Canada Day.
What brought me to Ottawa you may ask?
The answer, this guy:


Who's that strapping young fellow? Why one of Carleton Improv Association's finest, Owen Hewitt.

Owen had invited me out to check out the last CIA show before the summer as well as spend the rest of the weekend hanging out. And that we did, lots and lots of it.

Friday night I arrived in Ottawa by train, just in time for a kilt clad Owen to pick me up and drive me to Mike's Bar, the graduate bar at Carlton University. I met the other players and soon discovered that I was going to be in the show when I was given a set list of games.

The was fun to do and it was the first time I performed with all those guys, but unfortunately hardly any one showed up. On the bright side, those who did really enjoyed themselves and free drinks were being given out because the bar was closing for renovations over the summer.

Saturday was a really great lazy day. I slept in, had a great home cooked breakfast (Owen's parents are awesome hosts!), then sat outside for a while. Have you ever just sat outside and enjoyed the weather? I started to observed all the ants scurrying about on his patio stones. Now that is something fun and interesting to do. Watching all these ants run around and doing stuff.

We went to the local corner store to pick up some lunch where this young (~19year old) girl who was selling flowers started to chat us up. The 3 highlights of our conversation were:
1. I mentioned how I was the "comedy relief" and she corrected me stating it's "comedic relief"
2. She INSISTED we both add her on facebook
3. She liked when she heard my name because she's also dating a Josh

After lunch, I took a nap and then went for a dip in Owen's pool. The water was SO cold, that I even though I was in it for abotu 10 minutes, I was shivering for a couple of hours. After the quick dip, we watched the 3 hour miniseries of Battlestar Galactica. I have to admit that that show is GOOD! (well the miniseries at least). I can't wait to start watching some episodes.

After a scrumptious dinner, we hit up the town. We met up with a friend of his, Vicky and headed to a bar in town. There were hardly any people there but that didn't stop us from having fun! I got a few drinks in my and they were real cheap as well. I also got to witness some chick bring a guy to the bathroom to have sex. Twice. And each time it was a different guy. And the two guys knew each other. Skanky.

Sunday was spent relaxing at the house again. Owen and I spend most of the day checking out old shows found on tv-links. Ah, Red Drawf, how I still enjoy your British humor. I then returned to Montreal at 7:30pm.

I spent most of the day on Monday with Aurit. Monday night, however, I went golfing for the 3rd time in my life. I was with my brother Lorne, his brother in law Dan, and Dan's brother in law Guy.

It was fun to play with the guys since I quickly discovered they were all completely different type of golfers:

-Dan was the most professional of us. He had the proper clothes, nice set of clubs, goes about 15 times a summer and can really golf.

-Lorne on the other hand, likes to be very technical. He was there stretching before each swing, measuring to make sure he's standing in the perfect distance away from the golf ball, etc. and then when he actually hit the ball it most likely not go far or where he intended at all.

-Finally, Guy's mentality, being a fairly big guy, was just to knock the fuck out of the ball, Happy Gilmore style.

I think I was somewhere in between Lorne and guy. In the end, I played a pretty good round of golf and really kicked ass in the putting part.

The Misadventures of Joshua Budman

This past couple of weeks I"ve been really busy doing lot's of fun and exciting stuff. Unfortunately I was way too busy (lazy) to write about them while they were happening. So, now that I have a couple of hours before bed, I decided to start catching up the blog with my latest adventures. Enjoy!